When I step back onto the deck, Ryan examines me up and down. After my shower, I slipped on grey boxer-briefs (which he can't see, of course), black jeans, a light purple t-shirt, and an unbuttoned grey shirt over that. Ryan waited on the deck for me as I prepared and seems to have been entertaining Aster as he did.

He's got a small ball that he's tossing and letting bounce around a little, the pup chasing after it before depositing the ball in Ryan's hand. Considering that the ball itself looks completely clean when he does, the pup either doesn't slobber on things in the slightest or he's keeping it clean on purpose.

"The latter," Ryan tells me when I ask. "I told him I wanted to keep my hands clean for the date when he summoned the ball and tried to give it to me the first time. The slobber on the ball suddenly vanished and hasn't been back."

"Impressive," I rub the pup on the head. "Ryan and I are heading out for our date now, alright?"

The ball vanishes and Aster woofs, then accompanies us as we leave. Rather than going for a walk, Ryan leads me to his truck.

"It's not within walking distance this evening?" I ask.

"It was going to be," he tells me. "But a Celestial sort of derailed the plans. Most shops are closed right now, and I checked as you were finishing up to see if anything had opened back up. Not much. Nothing that seems right for a full date other than the park, at least."

The park being open doesn't mean the vendors are, however.

"So it's a bit further, then."

"My place, if you don't mind that," he says. "There's plenty to do there."

"Sure."

Ryan drives us to his apartment, Aster staring out the window from my lap as we go. He's so small as a wolf pup that I had to lift him up a little so he could look. It seems he wants to stick to this form instead of becoming something a little bit bigger.

Maybe he just wanted me to lift him up so he could look through the window? I wouldn't put it past the pup.

We talk as Ryan drives, mostly him telling me the original plans for the date. He'd wanted to take me to an open-air theater that was going to put on a show at seven, dinner served to the guests, except it's been canceled as most of the performers aren't Awakened and are potentially low in their Rank. They're still affected by Ash's manifestation.

With that out of the way, he looked for alternatives but could only find restaurants as real options. He didn't want to do that as the entirety of the date before we go to his apartment, so decided that we could just do stuff there instead.

"Here we are," Ryan says as we enter his apartment, and Aster lets out a small woof. "You'll have to wait for food until we eat, too."

Aster's ears droop.

I close the door behind me as Ryan sets the pup down, then Ryan goes to his kitchen and begins preparing something for us. As much as I'd like to just watch rather than do work, I step in to help him so he's not doing it all by himself. Ryan tells me what to work on as he's the one who knows what we're making, though it doesn't seem he needs too much help.

Dinner turns out to be some sort of bird monster meat served on noodles and topped with an orange sauce, with a salad for the side. Aster gets to eat some of the meat raw as Ryan and I eat our meals.

"That was pretty good," I tell Ryan as we take care of the dishes. "Do you mind if I ask how you learned to cook?"

"Some by instinct," he tells me. "Some from learning as I grew up or from other hunters. The instinct, I later learned was part of my real nature leaking through. Even if a demigod only knows he's something more than he is before his memories start to return, we do still retain some of our skills. Once I started regaining past memories, I also regained knowledge of cooking techniques and other related things, too."

"That's neat," I say. "What's next? Cuddles and story? Watching something?"

"I was thinking we could go up to the roof," he says. "Do some swimming. I have spare trunks you can borrow if you want, though you'd probably need to make sure to tie the drawstring tightly if you want to avoid them slipping off since my waist is a little bigger than yours. Or we could go nude – it's fully private up there thanks to the enchantments."

"A swim sounds nice," I tell him. "And we can go nude."

"Alright," he says. "Let's-"

Before he can finish that sentence, we appear in the Mythic Forest, beside the Starry Pleasure Waters. Aster lets out a happy bark and charges into the pond snout-first. When he surfaces, he lets out several happy barks and summons an inflated beach ball which looks made of an odd material. Probably something he acquired from another world.

"I think Aster wants us to swim and play here," I tell Ryan.

"I don't mind if you don't," he looks around. "This place really filled up, huh?"

While the entire available zone isn't covered in plant life yet, the pond itself is now fully-surrounded by plant life, thanks to my work on it the last two days. Well, there wasn't much work done on it yesterday, maybe fifteen minutes before I gave up on working and went to researching. That's why I don't count it as really having worked on it yesterday, but what amount I did do was sufficient to finish surrounding the pond while I was gone.

The effect is phenomenal. With plants looking like the night sky everywhere, whether in their petals, their stems, their blades, or their leaves, it looks almost as if we're in space itself. It's a comfortable feel and look and I'm sure it'll only become more so as things grow in even more.

"It did," I confirm as I undress.

While I simply wade into the water once I've undressed, Ryan looks for a spot where it's less shallow, then runs and jumps in, splashing Aster and me. We start playing with the ball, with Ryan and me tossing it back and forth and Aster jumping up and hitting it with his snout for his own passes.

Mostly.

A few times, the pup does a sort of flip in order to hit the ball with his tail, the flips sending the ball a little bit further to the side than necessary. They also cause the ball to fly faster, making it harder for Ryan and me to catch or bump back while in the water.

This sort of play wears me out a bit so I leave the pond and relax in the grass while Ryan keeps playing with Aster. Even a demigod doesn't have the stamina to play with a Celestial for long, though, and he pulls himself out of the pond after a bit to lie beside me. I snuggle up against him as we watch Aster continue playing with the ball for a bit.

Snuggling up against Ryan is nice enough that I close my eyes and just relax. He's pretty comfortable.

Eventually, Aster decides to exit the pond, run over, and jump straight onto my chest.

"Aster…"

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

The pup sends me a message, informing me that one of the other Celestials has invited him over to play. His friend almost never does that and wants it in his own realm even more rarely and so he'll be gone awhile, "at least a sleep or two".

"Alright," I ruffle the pup's very dry head. "Have a good time."

"Woof!" Aster's tail wags in his excitement, then he vanishes.

"Where's he going?" Ryan asks.

"To another Celestial's personal realm," I say. "Seems he got invited over."

"Neat," he says. "Though I hope he doesn't upset the other guy too much."

"I got the impression that it usually takes a day or two before Aster annoys him too much," I say.

"Ah."

Ryan goes back to looking upward. We can see part of the fog wall ceiling from here, the trees not yet so dense and large that they're obscuring it from the view of those on the ground. That seems to be holding his attention for some reason, so I close my eyes and relax again.

He's pretty comfortable to snuggle against like this.

Every time I open my eyes to look at Ryan's face, he's got a contemplative expression, sometimes with a slight frown.

"Everything alright?" I eventually ask.

"Yeah," he kisses me on the forehead. "It's not important, so don't worry about it. If it becomes important, though, I'll tell you."

So it relates to me somehow but doesn't matter in the now. That's my interpretation of his response, and I'll trust him to tell me if it's important or problematic. I can't see a reason for him to not otherwise.

"Alright," I close my eyes again.

After a few more minutes, I see Ryan still having the contemplative look on his face.

"You sure you're alright?" I ask.

"Yeah," he chuckles. "It's more of two things going through my head right now. I'm trying to figure out the fog wall here. Or cloud wall, really. I know that they're used in Dungeons to block off what would be an entrance to nothingness. In here, though, that's not the case. This also isn't a Dungeon, so why does it have the fog wall? Or the Fog of Obscurity?"

"That's an easy one to answer," I tell him. "Cloud's doing it."

"Cloud as in the Celestial?"

"Yeah."

"Ash tell you?"

"No," I answer. "I figured it out on my own. Remember how I can sense energies passively? I could tell there was something different about the fog wall from the start, but didn't really care. It was almost as if it was an entity unto itself. Now that I know about Cloud, I've figured out why – he is the fog wall. Sort of. I think it's like Ash and the trees he grew but not quite."

Realizing this is how I was able to know Cloud was nearby the other day. He's always here, possibly even when he's not. I think he can create separate bodies for himself like Ash did earlier, enabling him to be both the fog wall and have the body of a fish or a pup.

"So that's a Celestial's body up there?" Ryan asks.

"Yeah," I answer. "He's not focusing on this area right now, though. I can tell when he's looking at a zone directly as his attention isn't here. As for the Fog of Obscurity… I'm not sure about that. It doesn't have his magic in it so that's not him. Could just be my big brother doing it to try and keep me in the areas he wants."

"Ah," Ryan's quiet for a few minutes. "Why do you think Cloud's creating the fog wall?"

"I'm not too sure," I shrug. "Could've been asked by my brother to do so, or it could be so I can't see out of the zone I'm working on to avoid me getting distracted and wanting to clean up a larger area."

There's any number of reasons, really. I'll have to ask the Celestial himself to know for sure.

After a few more minutes of silence, I take another peek at Ryan. He's still got the contemplative look on his face. Whatever the other thing on his mind is, kit must be pretty big.

Speaking of big things…

Ryan snorts when my hand find his dick, and he turns his head and gives me a kiss as I start to jack him off. We make out for a minute, then I shift my position so I can start licking his dick. With the two of us alone now and in a date, there are some things I want to do beyond just cuddling. Since he's done with talking for now, I'm taking over for a little bit.

Ryan moans softly as I pull back his foreskin and lick the head, one of his hands moving to my shoulder, rubbing it. I take the tip of his dick into my mouth and slide my tongue across it, eliciting a slightly-louder moan from my boyfriend. After a few minutes of treating his dick to some stimulation, I switch to licking and sucking on his balls while lightly stroking his dick.

I alternate between teasing his balls and licking and sucking his dick for a few minutes, then go all the way down on it, feeling it sliding against my tongue and into my throat. Ryan lets out a heavy moan and I pull back so only the tip is in my mouth, then sink back down. His hand moves from my shoulder to my head as he moans again, and my head is where his hand firmly remains as I continue to go up and down on his dick.

"Almost-almost there," Ryan moans. "Ev, I'm close! Unh!"

He lets out a grunt-moan with each shot of cum which blasts into my mouth, and I pull my head back so that only the tip is inside. I pull down his foreskin again and swirl with my tongue as his orgasm continues, each shot of his cum hitting my tongue and throat with plenty of force. When he finishes, I make sure to clean up every last drop of cum, then go all the way down on his dick one more time before pulling off.

I move forward so I can kiss Ryan, our dicks rubbing together as he pushes his tongue into my mouth. His hands wander across my back and down to my ass, then back up. Soft moans escape me from his touch and the feeling of our rubbing dicks, then Ryan surprises me by flipping us over so that he's on top, all without losing our movements and closeness.

After another minute, he gets off of me and pulls something out of his bracelet. A bottle of lube.

"You never know when you might need some," he tells me when I raise an eyebrow.

"In a Dungeon?"

"I've gone home with a guy before and he didn't have any," Ryan tells me. "Now I always carry some."

"Ah."

I move onto my hands and knees and after lubing up, Ryan starts to slide his dick into my ass. A semi-loud moan escapes him as his dick fills my ass with its size, a soft moan escaping me from the feeling of it sliding in.

Once he's all the way in, Ryan lets out a sigh, then sort-of lies on me from behind, wrapping an arm against my stomach while using his other to brace himself against the ground. He starts kissing my neck as he thrusts, his movements more forceful even if his thrusts aren't as quick. The slower, rougher thrusts feel just as good to me as quicker ones, however, and I reach up with one of my hands to grab his side as I turn my head so we can kiss.

This position is a little uncomfortable but I enjoy it, especially when Ryan slips his tongue into my mouth again. The kiss doesn't last too long as I need to return to bracing myself with both arms, but my enjoyment doesn't end. His body against mine, his dick thrusting back and forth in my ass, us having rubbed our dicks together already… it all brings me over the edge and I reach my climax, cum blasting onto the ground beneath me.

When Ryan reaches his climax, he pulls out and I lie on my back, the grass soft beneath me. Rather than going for another round, Ryan lies does beside me, allowing me to rest my head on his shoulder as we catch our breaths a little.

Well, as he catches my breath. Since he now knows I don't need as much oxygen as a normal person, I don't fake being out of breath.

"Hey, Evan?" Ryan asks after a few minutes.

"Yeah?"

"Is there anything interesting you remember from your past life?" He asks.

Our date isn't over yet, and it seems he wants to learn more about me again. I'm happy to oblige as I don't see the harm in it. That's part of what this phase is all about, after all.

"Sure," I decide to tell him a little bit more than I'd planned. "I've remembered a new life every time I've fallen asleep after the first came back. The last few were earlier reincarnations than the first one I remembered, so I think that one was my last time. In all of them… people didn't have as varied of hair and eye colors."

"Really?" He asks. "How varied were they? Or rather… what little was there?"

"Brown, blond, black, or a sort of rusty-brown/orange color for hair," I answer. "And brown, blue, or green for mortal eye colors, purple for Rift Wolves and I guess Celestials, gold for gods, and silver for mythic beasts."

Ryan thinks for a few moments.

"I must be too young to have been around for that era," he says. "I wonder what changed."

"In the first reincarnation I remembered," I say. "I pretty distinctly remember thinking that it was a shame I was struggling to get my real hair color to not show through in my reincarnations. Remember how the big boy has the pelt of purples, oranges, and pinks?"

"That's a Rift Wolf pelt, right?" He asks.

"Yeah," I answer. "And it seems like it pops up in all reincarnations I had before. I was trying to get it to hide so it'd take longer for my brother to find me after I reincarnated. He usually did sometime around my early or mid twenties, it seems.

"Anyway… something I thought about in the first life I remembered," I say. "Was how it'd be so much easier if there was a wide variety of hair and eye colors for everyone. It'd make it harder for Noea to find me, then."

"Noea being your brother?"

"Yeah."

"I can see how that'd be useful," he says, then suddenly sits up and stares at me. "Wait. Hold on. Are you saying that you edited life itself just so you could blend in more easily?"

"I can't be a hundred percent certain as if I did, it was probably as my real self and I don't have those memories yet," I tell him. "But yes, there's a chance that I may have edited the biology of animals to have hair and eye colors semi-related to their or their parents' affinities. And in all universes, too."

Ryan falls back to a lying position, then lets out a big sigh.

"Man, I really picked a boyfriend, huh?"